


Island

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi [8]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Jedi Luke Skywalker, Jedi Rey, POV Rey (Star Wars), Pilot Rey, Sad Luke, Sort Of, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 21:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12662166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Rey goes to find Luke.





	Island

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Planet
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

  
Piloting to Ach-To isn’t difficult, not really. Rey has practiced some piloting here and there back on Jakku, racing ships through tunnels and things of that nature, part of passing the time before her family came back. (They would come back, she tried to tell herself, to comfort herself during the worst bouts of hunger on Jakku, when Unkar Plutt’s cruelty got too much. Now she can see it was carefully constructed denial to keep her from facing the horrible truth that her family wasn’t coming home)

And she’s piloted the Falcon. Even though she’s never left Jakku before this point.

It’s not the physical piloting that’s difficult. It’s the matter of knowing that there should be someone else here, someone else piloting up there with her, that’s bothering her. Han Solo is dead. And it’s Kylo Ren’s fault.

She doubts she could ever truly understand it. In hindsight, that anger — that anger had made defeating him too easy. What he had done to Finn, what he had done to Han, what he had done to her, and so much more, had made her angry. She could all but hear the Dark Side whispering to her even tapping into the Light, into the Force. You know what to do, scavenger. You’ve known it all along...

Even remembering, Rey can’t help but be scared at how close she came, how close she came to actually straying into the Dark. One step wrong and she would have fallen for certain.

She focuses on the hyperspace swirling blue, and she tries to distract her mind before falling asleep. It’s as she falls asleep that she focuses on the island, the waves crashing against the shores, the cliffs —

— _Kylo Ren’s face, looking too close to her. “I see it. I see the island.” —_

“Get out of my head,” she mutters.

_You hurt me, scavenger. You think you can run, but you can’t hide._

“And I’ll be ready to fight you,” she says.

_You’re no Jedi. You’re a fraud._

She turns over on her side, closes her eyes, tries to think of something else. Something that’s not Kylo Ren. Anything that’s not Kylo Ren.

***  
It’s when they actually land on Ach-To that Rey makes her way up the strange, stairlike structure. It takes a long while before she actually reaches the top, but she does.

When she does meet Luke, he initially refuses. “I’ve seen that raw strength only once before,” he says. “It didn’t scare me then. It does now.”

And Rey can’t help but be hurt by this. No, not just hurt. Angry. “I’m not here to be trained,” she says. “The galaxy needs your help.”

Still, Luke refuses. It’s later that he’s convinced to change his mind, but Rey can’t help but wonder if his nephew’s betrayal cut him that deep.

***

Throughout her training with Luke, Rey perfects her lightsaber form. She was mostly flailing, she remembers, in her first duel with Kylo Ren, trying her best to block his strikes — even shot in the side, he was no slouch with a blade. Indeed, if he hadn’t all but jogged her memory...who knows what would have happened? Rey is only relieved that he did, actually. But in practicing, she refines it, hones it. And all the while, she learns from the Jedi tomes.

The more she learns from the Jedi tomes, the more she can’t help but be amazed. All this, all of it, is what the Jedi were hiding the whole time? The more she learns that attachments were allowed before the Jedi decided to “reform” the Order to make it not the case, that romantic love was encouraged, all in the ancient Jedi tomes, the more that Rey can’t help but be amazed.

To think that the Jedi could have gotten this all so very wrong...

It’s later that Luke says that it’s time for the Jedi to end, and Rey says, “End? What’s going to happen next?”

Luke looks thoughtful. Then, “I don’t know. I can only assume that we start a synthesis of sorts. Between the Dark and the Light. The more that we fight, the more that we only prolong the galaxy’s suffering. I thought it was black and white, Rey, but only a Sith deals in absolutes. It seems other Jedi didn’t get the message.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do,” Luke says. “They thought too much and felt too little. Their Code left them isolated, their beliefs callous and unkind. They didn’t do anything to help those in the galaxy who needed them most. I can only hope that the next generation of Force users, if they’re there, is ready to rise to the challenge. Not make the same mistakes of the past.”

Rey merely nods. She feels like she’s been hit by a speeder gone out of control. She needs time to think.

***  
It’s alone that Rey gets to take it all in. The very thought of Luke Skywalker ending the Jedi Order...it’s all but inconceivable. Even though she can understand why, the more she’s learned, it seems inconceivable. Luke Skywalker, the beacon of hope for the galaxy, the man who stood up to the Emperor and Darth Vader...and he’s thinking of ending the Jedi Order.

It seems so very unreal. Strange.

She settles on her side, trying to fall asleep all the while, and it’s there that she sees it. A vision of a First Order ship, looming over a planet, bombing it, setting it ablaze. And she jolts awake, gasping for breath, looking around frantically all the while.

She has to get to that planet. Even describing it to Luke, the Jedi Master’s face looks as if his face has been drained of color. Then, “That’s Bespin. We have to get there.”

Rey can only hope that in getting to Bespin, she’s not too late.


End file.
